The Mind Body Connection: Positive Affirmations Facilitate Wellness

Cognitive behavioral psychologists assert that our thoughts and feelings determine our behavior and actions. And people believe that this is the same as positive affirmations.

Positive affirmations are wishes or desires that people seek to happen or seek to become real in their lives. Those who advocate positive affirmations teach that when a person seeks or desires a certain reality, and they affirm or declare it to already be true, then this will become reality.

For example, positive affirmation are often used in weight loss, where one might use an affirmation, such as, “I am healthy,” or “I am a fat burning machine.”

Or, say for example, a fearful nervous person who wishes to be more confident can repeat over and over to himself or herself: “I am confident” in the belief that by repeating this often enough, it will program the subconscious mind to actually rise up to the challenge and attain that desired reality.

How Psychology Views Affirmations

Psychology believes that not all positive affirmations can work: we cannot influence a state of events to happen simply by wishing and declaring them to happen. But, what positive affirmations do accomplish is a profound change in how we feel.

And when we feel good, positive and have a positive energy then our world is better, and so is our physical health. It is a fact that all our emotions, thoughts and words we speak and think can manifest themselves physically.

These vibrate through our being and our world. Generally, stress reactions in our bodies can be induced by mere thoughts, without the stress inducing event actually taking place.

This is known as the mind body connection.

In this respect positive affirmations can go a long way to manifesting something that you want to happen. This can also be of great help in healing.

The mind is a powerful thing.

Scientific Proof

There have been numerous studies that demonstrate how positive thoughts, affirmations and meditation can result in positive manifestations in the body.

Will saying or thinking, “I am cured of cancer” make it so? No. But, during times of immense stress as is seen in cancer patients who are battling the disease, positive affirmations can bring great results. Even if it’s something as small as bringing some peace and calm to someone who is chronically anxious, stressed, scared and in turmoil.

And, positive affirmations can be useful in many ways for everyday healing and in living a more holistic way of life.

While medical doctors provide medical care, they rarely address the emotions and feelings that come from being ill.

And in any other area where you want to improve your life, feel better about yourself and consequently feel better about the world around you.

The Mind Body Connection And Health

Ancient healing practices that stem from Eastern cultures, like India, and China consider the state of the whole person, and not just their symptoms.

The profound belief in those cultures, as well as, that of holistic medicine is that when the mind, body and soul of the individual is in balance, good health is achieved. And that disease is actually a result of imbalance.

Holistic medicine also looks for the root causes of illness, and not just at treating symptoms or at a cure.

Those people that are plagued with negative thinking, have negative energy and this will manifest itself in illness and generally prohibits “wellness.”

Two Traffic Jam Scenarios

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting in a traffic jam, we all have had this experience.
Now imagine how you can perceive and react to this. Here are two scenarios.

Scenario 1

One reaction is where we become anxious and pissed off. The longer we sit the more pissed we get.

We begin to think about what a waste of time this is, how we can be doing something else more enjoyable, how we have to get home and fix dinner, all the while getting more and more agitated and anxious.

Now we begin to hit the steering wheel, we rubberneck to try and see down the road to assess how far down the jam stretches and if there is an end in sight.

All the while our anxiety and anger is growing.

At the same time, our heart is racing, our pulse has increased, we are sweating and cursing and the body has gone into a full scale stress reaction.

Scenario 2

The other reaction is that we instantly accept our fate and realize that the traffic is there, we are stuck and there is nothing we can do about it.

We turn on some soothing music, sit back in our seat and relax.

Our body is calm, we feel at peace and we take the time to reflect on something positive, or possibly think about the weekend.

Which scenario do you think is better for health and wellness?

Dis-Ease

Dis-ease, think about that word. Dis – ease within the mind, will lead to dis-ease within the body.

Many times, disease can stem from our spiritual, emotional or mental disorder. And, we are not only talking about something major like cancer, this can be as simple as getting heedaches, feelin tired all the time and a general sense of unwellness.

The Eastern cultures have known this for hundreds or years, and prescribe treatments that are much more holistic in nature that treat the whole person, as opposed to simply treating symptoms as is the case in Western medicine.

Positive affirmations can reprogram the mind to create a more “well” individual leading to an internal peace and happiness that promotes optimal health and wellness.